Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum News


	For Immediate Release: December 23, 2008	Contact: David Blanchette (217) 558-8970
	First-hand accounts of the Civil War acquired by Presidential Library Illinois infantryman William Wyllie's 1862 – 1865 letters and journals describe a country in conflict Springfield, IL — The letters and journals of an Illinois infantryman who fought in the western theater of the Civil War, and which describe in great detail his activities and surroundings, have been acquired by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois. The approximately 147 of original letters intermingled with journal sheets were written by William Wyllie, a private and later a corporal with the 58th Illinois Infantry, Company G who mustered into service in 1862 from St. Charles in Kane County, Illinois. The Presidential Library acquired the collection from Marvel M. Schmitt of Bartlett, Illinois, a Wyllie descendant. “Wyllie's personal accounts give an extraordinarily detailed look at the life of a Civil War soldier from Illinois. These papers were written as he experienced life during these troubled times, and thus provide an invaluable tool for anyone seeking to understand a country in conflict,” said Illinois State Historian Thomas Schwartz. Wyllie saw action in the Corinth campaign of 1862, the Red River campaign of 1864 and a lengthy expedition in Missouri in 1864. By March 1865 he was in a New Orleans hospital with a leg infection. Wyllie was also a guard for prisoners of war at Camp Butler near Springfield, Illinois. Wyllie's letters and journal entries describe a Civil War soldier's life in great detail, including foraging, marching, and traveling on trains and steamboats. He writes about knitting socks and gloves, being a patient and nurse in military hospitals, his impressions of ironclad fighting ships, and his stays at Soldiers' Homes in Cairo, Memphis and Springfield. Wyllie was a devout Christian, commented on sermons he heard, and was candid about his feelings regarding soldiers drinking and playing cards. The Wyllie Collection joins the Presidential Library's rich, 11 million item manuscript collection that already contains more than 425 original Civil War collections. The Manuscript Department of the Presidential Library is open for research Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. except for state holidays. For more information, visit www.presidentlincoln.org. ###